The role of tourism in a changing climate for conservation and development. A problem-oriented study in the Kailash Sacred Landscape, Nepal

An interdisciplinary study was conducted in the Kailash Sacred Landscape region in north-western Nepal, to explore opportunities for, and barriers to, sustainable tourism as an adaptation strategy, not only for reducing community vulnerability to climate change but also as a poverty–alleviation measure. Whilst the primary focus was on interactions between tourism and climate change, the study revealed a highly complex system, with many social, economic, environmental, and institutional drivers involved. In order to bring some clarity and consistency in the exploration of these complex interactions in context, elements of the policy sciences, primarily problem orientation, were utilised. The exploratory nature of the study, including its objectives and intended use, meant that goal clarification and analyses of trends were based on limited available information. Despite these shortcomings, the study was able to elucidate and clarify on important factors to consider in consultation with relevant participants. Diversification of livelihood options as well as preserving local culture were found to be highly valued—both by the local communities that were consulted as well as for those advocating for a tourism experience that is unique to this region. Harmonising these valued outcomes could be achieved by incorporating and legitimising local traditional knowledge. Insights into further collaboration on the issue of valued outcomes would strengthen and support the knowledge base for an appraisal of possible development pathways.     

Liked by Peers or Liked by Teachers: Differential Patterns of Bullying over Time

ABSTRACT

We examined the tendency for high status children to bully their classmates. Children liked by peers only (LPO), liked by teachers only (LTO), liked by both (Both), liked by neither (Neither), and children with average peer and teacher liking (Average) were compared on self-, teacher-, and peer-reported bullying. Participants were 676 fourth-grade children (50.7% girls). Children in the Neither group evinced the highest level of bullying, which increased significantly from fall to spring. We found little evidence that children in the Both group differed from other groups or that their bullying increased over time. Self-reported physical bullying increased for boys in the LPO and Average groups and for girls in the LTO and Neither groups. Gender-specific findings have implications for researchers and practitioners.     

The Jurisprudence and Administration of Legal Interpreting in Hong Kong (1966–2016)

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - Legal interpreting and translation are some of the oldest and most frequently practised...     

Why is Family Violence Lower Among Mexican Immigrants? The Protective Features of Mexican Culture

Although immigrants tend to be less involved in crime than the native-born, less is known about whether immigration is protective regarding family violence and, if so, why. This is especially problematic given that some cultural features of immigrants, such as machismo, may increase family violence. Using a random sample of adults in El Paso County, Texas, the present study finds that family violence is substantially lower among first generation Mexican immigrants compared to 1.5 generation immigrants, second generation Americans and third generation or higher Americans. Higher levels of acculturation to Mexico among first generation immigrants partially mediated, or explained, this finding. However, familism and machismo were not higher among first generation Mexican immigrants; and, while lower among first generation immigrants, acculturation to the US was not associated with higher levels of family violence. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Predicting Conduct Problems from Community and Family Violence: The Moderating Effects of Hurricane Katrina

Although the devastation was immediately apparent, the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the behavior of youth are just now being revealed. Much post-disaster research targets adjustment of adults, but ample evidence indicates that youth experience a variety of psychological symptoms following a disaster, including depressive symptoms, aggression, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress. The aim of the current study was to determine whether hurricane exposure serves as a risk factor for developing conduct problems among violence-exposed youth. Results indicate that hurricane exposure had differential effects on the relations between conduct problems and community violence versus corporal punishment in the home. Though not statistically significant, there was an unexpected trend for youth with high hurricane exposure to show decreased conduct problems and those with low hurricane exposure to show increased conduct problems as violence exposure increased. Hurricane exposure played the predicted role in the relation between corporal punishment and conduct problems, such that high levels of hurricane exposure predicted increased conduct problems among youth experiencing high levels of corporal punishment, but not among those experiencing low levels of corporal punishment. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Subsidiarity in the Area of EU Justice and Home Affairs Law—A Lost Cause?

This article intends to highlight the concept of subsidiarity in the area of the third pillar and EU criminal law more generally. In doing so, the article tries to show that criminal law could and should be seen as imbued with 'subsidiarity' and, more specifically, that it could be viewed as an expression of the principle of ultima ratio—a minimalism approach—in criminal law. Accordingly, the article asks why subsidiarity appears to be forgotten in third pillar matters despite its important function in this area. Moreover, the article confronts such a desired application of subsidiarity in the context of established EC law doctrine, by questioning whether it is possible simply to transplant the supranational discussion into the terrain of criminal law. Further, the article explores the function of Article 47 EU as the watchdog of the supranational sphere and discusses also briefly the phenomenon of enhanced cooperation in relation to the principle of subsidiarity in the domain of EU Justice and Home Affairs.     

The Role of Think Tanks in the Swedish Political Landscape

The term ‘think tank’ represents a heterogeneous concept and is used to characterise a diverse group of organisations. This diversity also characterises the Swedish organisations and institutions that currently fall under the think tank umbrella. In the Swedish political context, most organisations known by the public and news media as think tanks are advocacy organisations with an unambiguous ideological and political profile. Further, during the last decade, we have seen a proliferation of independent, self-declared think tanks with more specific policy agendas, such as the environment and health care. However, according to the broader understanding used in global rankings, the Swedish think tank landscape includes a range of research institutions in different policy areas. Some receive funding from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, corporations and private donors; others are government-funded, with Stockholm's International Peace Research Institute as a prominent example. The aim of this article is to map the Swedish think tank landscape and its borders and analyse the roles of different types of think tanks in consensual or confrontational policymaking. Strategic differences among these types are related to historical background and funding. While government-funded and some policy-sector think tanks typically represent a tradition of consensual policymaking, those funded by the Corporation of Swedish Enterprise and other business interests represent a post-corporatist development advocating neoliberal ideas and assuming a confrontational role in the expansion of private ownership and market solutions.     

Intimate constellations/constellations of intimacy: an exchange on navigating in collisions

How to imagine alternative forms of attachments and intimacies beside the centrifugal force of compulsory coupledom? This is one of the central questions in this creative exchange between an artist (Fleckner) and art historian (Danbolt), using wood cuts and words respectively in an examination of imaginaries of relation and belonging. With an interest in the power of esthetic figurations in shaping desire and politics, the article’s cross-medium exchange considers the importance–and difficulty–of reconfiguring established plots and institutions of intimacy. While the prints take their starting point in a critical reconfiguration of the visual tradition of mapping relationality in the form of couple-oriented family trees, the textual responses move between the genres of the essayistic, theoretical, and diaristic in an attempt to consider alternative modes of valuing and acknowledging relations. Refusing to let go of the desire for a revolution in the structures of intimacy in times where alternatives to hetero- and homonormative arrangements of desire seem increasingly sparse, the text flaunts an unabashed belief in the world-making power of the esthetic and its ability to produce utopian performatives that gives sense to ways of feeling and relating differently.